Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Weekend Monkey: Partying At The Revolution

There's not all that much to do in Denver on a hot August night..it's not like Vegas or Manhattan or East St. Louis. So there I was about 1 AM, walking the streets and trying to get my brains together when I saw her.

She was wearing one of those chic 'Defend Denver' army green shirts with the AK47 on it over a pink top and bandanna and some worn jeans with a `f*ck Bush' patch in a strategic place,and both of us did a double take.

"Omigod, Weekend Monkey!" she squealed. "Are you here for the convention too?"

"Wait a minute",I said,processing..."Allison,right? From the campaign?"

"Uh-huh."

Talk about yer coincidences..she'd been one of the area reps for the Weekend Monkey For President campaign. "The last time I saw you was in Des Moines", I said. "What brings you here?"

"The same as you,Monkey,the convention," she said with a cute little grin. "After the campaign folded, I was still interested in the politics of working for change, so here I am."

"So, I guess you're an anarchist now huh? Y'know, I bet a lot of people are watching you guys on TV and wondering what that's about."

"Well, Monkey, a lot of it is a social scene, believe it or not. It's like the Obama thing, only more intense. You go to rallies, get high,hook up....you have no idea what a rush it is to get chased by cops and then wind up hiding out somewhere with some cute guy....it's like, romantic or something. And trashing things for the sheer hell of it is like too much fun...didn't you ever toss a firecracker or break a window just to hear the noise?"

She beckoned to me, "C'mon Monkey...come and meet some of my friends."

We walked around a corner into the park and ran into a whole group of anarchist kids hanging out, smoking dope, drinking cheap wine and recounting the days' fun. I was immediately noticed by a couple of sentries.

"Who the f*ck are you?" The questioner was a large kid, maybe 19 in a Che tee.

"It's cool, Tino", said Allison. "He's with me."

As we walked through the group, I realized Allison was right..it was a social scene, almost like a weekend house party. The signs were put away. People were drinking,smoking and flirting with each other and the only ones still really talking hard core politics were the ones who weren't getting high and who you knew weren't going to get laid no way, no how.

We sat down in the middle of one of the groups.

"Hey everybody, this is Weekend Monkey. He ran for president this year", Allison chimed.

"Are you one of those fascist pigs here for the convention, man? Allison, why did you bring this creep here?" The questioner was a kind of heavy set girl with a Palestinian kefiya scarf and a red 'impeach now' sweatshirt, and her little query bought me glares from the entire collective.

"Actually", I said "I'm more of an anarcho-syndicalist using the Hegellian dynamic to practice Kruputnick's doctrine of destroying the system from within."

That little bit of dialectic was all it took to bring smiles and approval from the group. Let no one say that this monkey can't think on his feet!

"Oh wow..wanna smoke a joint?" said the heavy set girl,who's name I later found out was Lara.

"Sure,why not...it's been a pretty intense day. What have you guys got planned for tomorrow?"

"Uh,the usual stuff man," piped up a kid in a black rockn'roll tee with a pierced labret. "Trash stuff, tie up traffic, play tag with the cops and hope to get on TV!"

Everybody had a good chuckle at that one.

As I sucked the dope into my lungs and everybody got looser, I realized that a lot of the anarchists had some stuff in common, especially the younger ones. Plenty of them seemed to not have a whole lot in the way of family ties or stuff like jobs and careers,the stuff that most of us use to keep grounded.Instead,they'd found a family and a job of sorts here, at Ground Zero in the Beeg Revolution.

I looked at Allison, who's baby blues were slightly unfocused by now.

"You were right, Ally....this is fun. You planning on sticking around here after the convention?"

"Probably not. When this is over, I'll probably go back to Iowa, she murmured, leaning against me slightly. "Politics is kinda fun, but I can't imagine doing it all the time."

Well, sweetie, we all have our addictions, don't we? Politics...the art of the possible.

3 comments:

louielouie
said...

my gosh ff don't you have any administrative control over your own blog?this reads like a teenagers diary of what i did at summer camp.monkey boy is walking around denver in the middle of the night?what about all the high level party officials bedding down with high priced hookers. this has got to be second only to the super bowl in the category of cash flow from the oldest profession. what about getting invited to a party and hitting on MO?and what about this little gem:

I'm more of an anarcho-syndicalist using the Hegellian dynamic to practice Kruputnick's doctrine of destroying the system from within."

that reads like the record of my last lower GI examine. and when i say lower GI i mean realllllly low.

and don't tell me. i bet you're forking over the coin to provide the means for chimpy to do this. i bet he even tells you he's gonna need a forward on some balance just to stay in denver throughout this whole charade.AND I BET YOU SEND IT TO HIM!!!!!!

Hi Louie,You have to remember that Monkey has offended a large part of the Democrat powers that be and is unlikely to get invited to any of the real high level shindigs. If you remember, back when he was running, they didn't even let him in most of the debates and with the bad blood between him and Obama, he was lucky to be allowed on the convention floor.

I found his take on the anarchists interesting, and his coverage of last night's antics was actually fairly decent.

As to the hooker angle, I had occasion to discuss that very matter with a rather well known madam I met at a party through one of my old music biz pals a few years ago.

She told me in no uncertain terms that she liked Republicans and that GOP conventions were always a lot better for the working girls then the Donkey gatherings.

The Republicans tipped better and had a lot more respect for and willingness to use professionals, while the Democrats were the ones who were more inclined to try to trick the girls into getting something for nothing or add on little 'extras' they refused to pay for, were lousy tippers and were usually too busy screwing one another anyway.